The Sunday Show:
Ukraine On Default Watch
01/18/15
The Digital Rundown
The Sunday Show is the flagship TV-show produced by the Hromadske International team from its global headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine. This is the only prime-time TV program explaining the Eastern European geopolitical storm in English.
This week:
anchored by Natalie Gumenyuk and Ian Bateson
produced by Katherine Jacobsen, Devin Ackles and Maxim Eristavi
Get up to speed on Ukraine. Follow Hromadske!
East Ukraine sinks in violence
Hromadske International co-hosts Ian Bateson and Nataliya Gumenyuk speak about Gumenyuk’s recent trip to Donbas.
Gumenyuk noted that the situation has escalated around the Donetsk airport with more heavy artillery and tanks. The number of bomb attacks in areas along the current divide between separatist and Ukrainian held territories has increased as well in the past several weeks and the humanitarian situation is “getting worse every day,” said Gumenyuk.
Gumenyuk, who is blacklisted in by the separatists in eastern Ukraine, traveled to the region for a week and visited all of the area’s major hotspots, as well as the city of Donetsk itself.
This Is How It Feels Like To Be Trapped In War-Torn Eastern Ukraine
A unique glimpse inside everyday life amid the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk recently returned from an undercover reporting trip to Donetsk. Gumenyuk is blacklisted in rebel-held territories and, like many Kyiv-based journalists, experienced difficulties entering into Ukraine’s war-torn eastern region. Over one week, Gumenyuk spoke with locals in the Donetsk area about how their lives have changed as a result of the ongoing conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian military forces.
Is Peace A Possibility In Eastern Ukraine?
‘We Didn’t Expect an Escalation in the East’ — Ukraine’s MFA
Despite ceasefire agreements to stop fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the conflict has continued. This is because Russia does not have the political will to stop the conflict and help settle the war in a diplomatic matter, said Dmytro Kuleba, the Ambassador-at-Large to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. As such, Ukraine is “forced to respond and are seeking a political solution to the conflict,” he explained.
Here Are 2 Realistic Outcomes of Peace Talks with Russia, Listed by Ukraine MFA
Right now, it’s realistic to think there could be a ceasefire between separatist and Ukrainian forces in the east, if there was political will from Russia, said Dmytro Kuleba, the Ambassador-at-Large to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. The only hang-up right now in preventing these things is Russia’s unwillingness to come to an agreement and stick to it, Kuleba explained.
Ukraine’s Default Watch
While it is not certain that Ukraine would default, there is a 20 percent possibility that it might, said Tom Coupe, VoxUkraine member and Associate Professor and Senior Economist at the Kyiv School of Economics. This is an unusually high likelihood. While a default wouldn’t be dire, it is not ideal by any means, Coupe explained.
Tom Coupe and Devin Ackles of CASE Ukraine spoke with Hromadske International co-hosts Ian Bateson and Nataliya Gumenyuk during the Sunday Show:
The question we asked our audience:
A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led by Christopher Jarvis has arrived in Ukraine to conclude discussions on the 2012 Article IV consultation (commitments with respect to the exchange rate regime), the IMF Resident Representative Office in Ukraine told Interfax-Ukraine. At the end of last week, Deputy Director of the IMF External Relations Department David Hawley said that the mission would deal with the 2012 Article IV consultation, and not the program of cooperation with Ukraine.
“The revision [of the stand-by program] for Ukraine is frozen,” Hawley said.
Wake Up, Europe
by George Soros
It is also high time for the European Union to take a critical look at itself. There must be something wrong with the EU if Putin’s Russia can be so successful even in the short term. The bureaucracy of the EU no longer has a monopoly of power and it has little to be proud of. It should learn to be more united, flexible, and efficient. And Europeans themselves need to take a close look at the new Ukraine. That could help them recapture the original spirit that led to the creation of the European Union. The European Union would save itself by saving Ukraine.
Ukraine Budget’s Tax Revenue Expectations ‘Laughable’ — Analyst
The new Ukrainian budget is overly optimistic and anticipates a 30 percent increase in tax revenues, said Devin Ackles, an analyst with CASE Ukraine. Since the country is currently in a recession and the tax system notoriously corrupt, it is “laughable” to think that tax revenues would actually increase, Ackles explained.
The West cannot allow Ukraine to fail now, because that would prove Russian President Vladimir Putin right about the insincerity and inefficacy of Western aid. So the IMF will probably release the next portion of the already approved $17 billion package to keep the government in Kiev afloat for now. Ukraine, however, needs an additional $15 billion to survive this year, according to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. This money should be made contingent on the country making quicker changes than even the most committed reformers, such as Abromavicius, believe are possible now. Stretching out essential structural changes over a year or two should not be an option: That’s a sure way to waste the crisis, to use Abromavicius’s phrase.
Anti-Russian Protests in Armenia: Is Russia Loosing its Closest Allies?
Protests erupted in Armenia last week after a Russian soldier killed six members of one Armenian family on January 12, 2015. It remains unclear if the soldier will stand trial in Russia, or in Armenia. The country is Russia’s one of the closest allies in the post-Soviet world.
Hromadske International co-hosts Ian Bateson and Nataliya Gumenyuk spoke with Stepan Grigoryan, an Armenian political analyst, about the situation.
Charlie Hebdo: Lessons for Eastern Europe
‘Ukraine’s ‘Je Suis Volnovakha’ is Misusing the ‘Je Suis Charlie’ Movement’
Volodymyr Yermolenko of Internews Ukraine and France 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg discuss the “Je suis Volnovakha” campaign in Ukraine.
On Sunday, January 18, peace marches occurred across Ukraine calling for an end to the conflict in the country’s east. Protesters carried signs with the slogan “Je Suis Volnovakha” a rehashing of the “Je suis Charlie” phrase that was coined in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
In Volnovakha, Ukraine, a passenger bus full of civilians was allegedly shot by separatists killing eleven inside.
8 Jan. 2014, Kyiv. Activists from “Stop censorship!” movement, journalists, deputates organized a demonstration of solidarity in front of the French assembly in Kyiv in order to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attack made by Islamists radicals on Charlie Hebdo magazine team.
“The aim of the demonstration is to express solidarity with victims of the attack” — says the activist, adding, — “Such demonstrations take place all around the world and we are a part of the global movement for freedom of speech.”
Journalists, photographers, videographers from different media took part in it. The residents of Kyiv have begun to bring candles and flowers since night.
On 7 January 12 people were killed in the centre of Paris in the result of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo office. Among the dead was the editor of Charlie Hebdo, Stephane Charbonnier, and two police officers.
Media Monitor: Fear and uncertainty amid fierce fighting at Ukraine airport
We’ve read all the press on Ukraine this week so you would not have to.
Volodymyr Yermolenko from Internews Ukraine joined Hromadske International’s Sunday Show to discuss the nine major news articles published over the last week.
Media Monitor is a regular segment on the Sunday Show and is part of a collaboration between Internews Ukraine and Hromadske International.
To see the full Medium analysis piece Yermolenko authored for this segment, follow this link:
The Full Show In One Video:
